Word: chiles
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Chile," said Santiago's Ambassador to Washington Walter Heitmann last week, "is going to be a masterpiece of democracy." The occasion for that grandiose claim was the first anniversary of the death of Marxist President Salvador Allende Gossens and the replacement of his elected government by a military regime. In light of the junta's record of suspended civil rights, torture of political prisoners and abolition of Congress, the ambassador's assertion seemed an overstatement. The thousands of Chileans who gathered in Santiago to commemorate the coup of Sept. 11 seemed to be celebrating the absolute order...
...junta did use the anniversary, however, to announce an end to some of its harsher measures. Army General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Chile's stern-visaged chief of state, told a crowded assembly of coup supporters that political prisoners-"with the exception of a few particularly serious cases"-would be allowed "to leave forever the national territory." Already Orlando Letelier, former Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the U.S., had left his Chilean prison for exile in Venezuela. But Pinochet also put an end to any hopes that a genuine loosening of the junta's grip was in the making...
...five domestic intelligence services, or the periodic police sweeps through urban shantytowns in search of "subversives." The Congress remains closed (the building serves as a center where records of political detainees are kept), while political parties are still suspended. TIME Buenos Aires Bureau Chief Rudolph Rauch, who visited Chile last week, reports that even many who opposed Allende are fearful that complaining in public-about the high cost of living, for example-could have dire consequences. They have good reason for their fear, since large numbers of Chileans are still being arrested. Last week Amnesty International charged, moreover, that...
...Congressman Michael Harrington of Massachusetts, leaked to the press last week, contained some devastating excerpts from testimony earlier this year by CIA Director William Colby before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence. Colby apparently admitted that the CIA, with White House approval, had funneled some $8 million into Chile between 1970 and 1973, first to keep Allende from being elected and later to weaken his government. The revelations were potentially damaging to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who chaired the so-called Forty Committee that approved the covert CIA operations, as well as to former Ambassador to Santiago Edward...
Colby's testimony was also embarrassing to the military rulers of Chile. The disclosures cast doubt on the junta's claim that it was misrule by Allende and the politicians that brought ruin to Chile. Indeed, some experts believe that the CIA disruptions, combined with the curtailment of U.S. foreign aid credits and bank loans, contributed greatly to Allende's economic woes...